As Amos says, FT doesn't get it. What he doesn't get is that hundredth posts have no special significance here on the MOAB. Sure, there are significant numbers, in fact there's one in roughly every hundred posts. But, only MOABites know the formula for determining MOAB-significant numbers. It involves calculations based on the orbital velocities of certain small third-world countries and the gross national product of a wandering herd of wilderbestswyldabeets gnus at a secret indisclosed location somewhere within one of those same third-world countries. We're certainly not gonna share that information with the likes of Teddy.

From the NEw York Times, HARK!!!! Bull has now become MAINSTREAM!!! AcaDEMic!!

Stilly, three cheers!!!

Laura Pedrick for The New York Times Harry G. Frankfurt, emeritus professor of philosophy at Princeton, whose essay on the art of hokum, first written in 1986, has now become a small book published by Princeton University Press.

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Between Truth and Lies, An Unprintable Ubiquity By PETER EDIDIN

Published: February 14, 2005

arry G. Frankfurt, 76, is a moral philosopher of international reputation and a professor emeritus at Princeton. He is also the author of a book recently published by the Princeton University Press that is the first in the publishing house's distinguished history to carry a title most newspapers, including this one, would find unfit to print. The work is called "On Bull - - - - ."

The opening paragraph of the 67-page essay is a model of reason and composition, repeatedly disrupted by that single obscenity:

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much [bull]. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry."

The essay goes on to lament that lack of inquiry, despite the universality of the phenomenon. "Even the most basic and preliminary questions about [bull] remain, after all," Mr. Frankfurt writes, "not only unanswered but unasked."

The balance of the work tries, with the help of Wittgenstein, Pound, St. Augustine and the spy novelist Eric Ambler, among others, to ask some of the preliminary questions - to define the nature of a thing recognized by all but understood by none.

What is [bull], after all? Mr. Frankfurt points out it is neither fish nor fowl. Those who produce it certainly aren't honest, but neither are they liars, given that the liar and the honest man are linked in their common, if not identical, regard for the truth.

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth," Mr. Frankfurt writes. "A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it."

The bull artist, on the other hand, cares nothing for truth or falsehood. The only thing that matters to him is "getting away with what he says," Mr. Frankfurt writes. An advertiser or a politician or talk show host given to [bull] "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it," he writes. "He pays no attention to it at all."

And this makes him, Mr. Frankfurt says, potentially more harmful than any liar, because any culture and he means this culture rife with [bull] is one in danger of rejecting "the possibility of knowing how things truly are." It follows that any form of political argument or intellectual analysis or commercial appeal is only as legitimate, and true, as it is persuasive. There is no other court of appeal.

The reader is left to imagine a culture in which institutions, leaders, events, ethics feel improvised and lacking in substance. "All that is solid," as Marx once wrote, "melts into air."

Wittgenstein? He drags in Wittgenstein? Probably drags in other malcontents and roughnecks, too. Why doesn't he cite someone who knows, like La Wall or Jessup? But no, he's a hoity-toity New Yorker, probably from uptown who hangs out at MOMA and has long hair in a pony tail and a beard. Jeez, for the price of coupla beers at Stinky's Place ol' Moony Stevens would have given him more BS than you can fit into a Ford Expedition.

Jacques Lyotard wrote lucidly about privileging the storyteller. I'll have to thumb through my dog-earred copy of The Postmodern Condition and see if he mentioned BS in there. . . interesting avenue of inquiry. . .

Leotards aren't made, they're harvested. Vast leotardyards grace the undulating hills around Grace, Idaho and in the Spring the hills are vibrant with the colors of the blooms. As Spring passes into Summer and Summer into the harvest time, gradually the blooms lengthen until, in late August, it's like looking at waves of rainbows flowing like water.

The fully-developed leotards are gently removed by hand, using generations-old techniques that prevent any harm to the plant by the very young virgin boys and girls who do the actual harvesting.

After the leotard harvest the town celebrates with a Te Deum and the Annual Festival Of The Tards, where folk dancing and gentle merriment are the rule. Perhaps the most joyous event is the "Parading of the Tards," where bevies of nubile youth swarm through the streets waving leotards of various colors over their heads.

Well, I went looking for an image of my old pal Lyotard, and came up with this. Wondering why, (even though I understand that a postmodern couple is welcome to have five or even more legs between them) I scanned the page, only to realize, merde!, that I had commingled the names of my postmodernists! It's Jean-François Lyotard (and Jacques Derrida--I've cited him recently here at Mudcat so his name was fresh in my mind). Humble apologies. Does that make it any easier to understand where these Lyotards come from? Here's Jeanee. (And so he doesn't seem to be slighted, here's my pal Jacques who always looked like someone Avedon has photographed. Maybe wherever they both are, one is photographing the other.)

It has occured to me that I should let Flaming Ted share one of the easiest of the Secret MOAB numbers to achieve. Should he (or she, if he is female) manage to achieve this number, she (or he, if she is male) can begin the Secret MOAB Training Course.

Oh noooooo, math! I wish I didn't have a math phobia! I love the concepts, but when I have to work with numbers, they don't stay where I put them and get all turned around. That's why I'm not an astronomer or physicist. :>

Teresa, I have trouble visualizing the braille telescope, anyway, so that probably wouldn't have been a good career choice. But physics--it seems like we spend much of our lives trying to NOT prove the rules of physics. Anyone can do that! (i.e., "If I hold this really hot full bowl level I can carry it to the table without the contents gaining energy from my motions and waves forming that will slosh over the side of the bowl, burning my fingers in the heat transfer and causing a damp spot of such viscosity on the floor that I'll slip in it.")

I love the idea of a braille telescope. I wish I had one just to get me through my own blind spots.

Trying to prove the NOT of physics is a common experience. Everyone knows the feeling of praying "Oh, PLEASE don't let it be broken...." when going to recover something that physics has rudely stolen from your grip...like your mother's Ormolu clock. :D

"Don't let gravity work this time" is not a successful spell that I could recommend for Big Pink Lad's thread searching for effective spells. And the incantation (at the top of your lungs) "Oh, SHIT!" doesn't scare the thing back into it's proper position, either.

About ten years ago, I really learned what the "so far, so good" adage meant when I got clipped by a car and went flying through the air. It seemed like an eternity, and while I was sailing, I was thinking in that flashbulb-lucid way: "This is kinda neat. I sure hope I don't l ..."

And that road-rash and muscle strain were not fun at all, but at least I didn't get badly damaged. I did go into shock, though, which scared me. Having a pulse of 42 scared me right back up to 130, lemme tell ya. :>

So, Rapaire, what were you doing when you came up with the exclamation that you quoted above? Did it have to do with the hot wire when you were working on the house, or maybe the tile work? Carpet laying? Digging up old freezers under the back porch? Or something more gruesome, like to do with the golf course?

Ah well, it was my fault. The laundromat was right across from my apartmennt building, and I'd decided to try jaywalking. A guy told me when there were no cars coming. The young woman who got me was a microbiology student on her way to an exam. she stopped at a stop sign a block away, and as she was driving into the sun, she didn't see me. She was absolutely panic-stricken an inconsolable when she hit me, and I had to hug her, so I knew I was pretty much ok if I could do that. :)

Well, SRS, it's sorta like this. One time I was walking a trail along the top of a bluff at a city park (alone) and decided that I'd take a short cut down. It wasn't so back, and I held onto the trees and bushes. But I got to moving faster and faster, and pretty soon I was running full tilt and then the edge arrived. With no help for it, I sorta jumped. Twenty feet, straight down. Badly sprained ankle, assorted bruises and VERY sore muscles.

It was the wrong shortcut down; the one I wanted was farther on.

And then my late friend Ton wanted a misshapen, wind-bent cedar that was growing on top of a cliff that was, roughly, 200 feet high. Steve and I, being good chaps, told him we'd go get it. Well, we found a scalable way up. And I got down, but Steve decided to rappel. With a clothesline. No harness -- this was before harness, he wrapped the rope around his waist and through his crotch in the old fashioned way that makes castrati out of (male) climbers. Not a problem for Steve, but his girlfriend asked me to "climb up and HELP him!" I did, Steve got to the ledge I was on, fifty feet up, and then I slipped. I fell, and slid faster and faster towards the creek. I shot off the ledge about fifteen feet up. Fortunately, I missed the water. I did not miss the rocks. This time I sprained BOTH ankles, lost my glasses, and generally damaged myself in various places.

I won't mention the intentional stuff, or experiments with explosive powders or various others things since they were intentional. Stupid, perhaps. Foolish even. But intentional.

That can only be described as an incredibly stupid thing to do. Glad you're alive though. And pouring 5 ponds of molten aluminum into a homemade kiln, to get the heat up a bit is sensible thing to do, really..